” … The cast handles the intricacies of the story and the music quite well – and there hardly seems a better choice for the title role than Maria Guleghina, world-renowned Russian soprano. She seems to tap directly into the inner emotions of the ole, moving from joy to jealousy to despair to betrayal with ease. Guleghina’s clear soprano carries the often-demanding musical score well. She gracefully performs octave jumps and georgeous arias…”
The Galveston County Advertiser
” … Alternating with “Caesar” is a rather pedestrian version of Puccini’s Tosca, enlivened mainly by the appearance of Super-Tosca Maria Guleghina. This hugely powerful soprano gave the role of the blackmailed singer sufficient heft, controlled variation and occasional sweetness…”
American Stateman
” … But Houston Grand Opera’s current production manages to make this most battle-scarred of operas fresh and with thoroughly traditional sets and costumes. Both dramatically and musically, it’s lull of pleasant and subtle surprises. For all the sopranos who flail and screech their way through the title role, Maria Guleghina all hut owns it. Too many others make the diva such a monster of self-absorbed jealousy that you can’t imagine why any man would go near her. Ms. Guleghina’s Tosca is high-strung to be sure, and jealous, but underneath she’s a decent human being. She has her playful and vulnerable sides, too. And in her second-act standoff with Scarpia, you can only admire how she channels her horror into a steely cool. She even makes her slow-as-molasses “Vissi d’arte” persuasive as a kind out-of-body experience. And there’s the voice, one o the biggest on any singe. But melting the paint off the walls by boiling rather than scorching – is only one of the things she does with it. She uses its whole enormous range of volume and color, from whitish girlishness when flirting to that hurling volcano of sound in full terror…”
Dallas News